Government spent Rs 911.17 crore on advertisements over last three years

NEW DELHI: The government spent Rs 911.17 crore on advertisements in newspapers, television channels and web portals in the past three years, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

The advertisements were paid for by the Central Bureau of Communications from financial year 2019-20 till June 2022, he said.

The government spent Rs 295.05 crore on advertisements in 5,326 newspapers in 2019-20, Rs 197.9 crore in 5,210 newspapers in 2020-21, Rs 179.04 crore in 6,224 newspapers in 2021-22 and Rs 19.25 crore in 1,529 newspapers in 2022-23 (till June), Thakur said.

During the same period, the government spent Rs 98.69 crore on advertisements in 270 television (TV) channels in 2019-20, Rs 69.81 crore in 318 TV channels in 2020-21, Rs 29.3 crore in 265 news channels in 2021-22 and Rs 1.96 crore in 99 TV channels in 2022-23 (till June), Thakur said.

On web portals, the government's spending on advertisements was Rs 9.35 crore on 54 websites in 2019-20, Rs 7.43 crore on 72 websites in 2020-21, Rs 1.83 crore on 18 websites in 2021-22 and Rs 1.

97 crore on 30 websites in 2022-23 (till June 2022), the minister said in response to a question by Congress member Digvijaya Singh.